Re: aquascaping

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

Excellent definition Roger, and some good points. Are we right in limiting
our scope in the manner you describe?:

>In our case we have limited the field to scenes that include live plants.

Where does that leave Erik's citing of biotope aquariums for Rift Lake
Cichlids? They are certainly aquascaped, usually by the aquarist, sometimes
with a little help from the fish themselves <g>.

>Karen has already expressed a specific opinion about including silk plants
>(specifically, silk poinsettias).  Do you suppose that she would extend
>that opinion to plastic plants as well?  She has placed an emphasis on
>gardening, and I don't think one gardens with plastic plants.

The inclusion of material which is obviously foreign in appearance to
_anything_ which would be found naturally in an aquatic environment is
relatively easy. But there are a lot of plastic plants which can very easily
fool the eye, especially in a photographic image.

If we _specifically_ exclude _all_ plastic plants, I'm almost 100% certain
that _someone_ is going to do an aquascape using very realistic looking
plastic plants and submit the photo claiming that they are real. And it may
VERY well be someone from the APD with an axe to grind against the AGA. They
may be only fooling themselves (and us, quite possibly) but _we_ would end
up looking the fool should that aquascape win, place or even show in the
"Natural Planted Tank" category.

I am very aware of Karen's views in a general way, but wish that she were
available right now to clarify this important specific point.

I would hate for us to go along and decide something which would be
automatically dismissed by the AGA MC out of hand. Erik, although Karen is
out of town and unavailable until the middle of next week, would it be
possible to breeze this past some other members of the AGA MC and get a
feeling for how they might like to see this worded/structured?

James Purchase
Toronto
AGA member


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